"Tell him I'll guarantee him a full house," says Pinckney.
Course, Leonidas didn't need any coaxin'. "But I wish you'd find out if there isn't a butcher's shop handy," says he. "You see, we were up against it for a week or so, over in Jersey, and the rations ran kind of low. In fact, all we've had to live on for the last four days has been bean soup and pilot bread, and the artists are beginning to complain. Now that I've got a little real money, I'd like to buy a few pounds of steak. I reckon the aggregation would sleep better after a hot supper."
I lays the case before Pinckney and Sadie, and they goes straight for Mrs. Brassett. And say! before eleven-thirty they had that whole outfit lined up in the main dinin'-room before such a feed as most of 'em hadn't ever dreamed about. There was everything, from chilled olives to hot squab, with a pint of fizz at every plate.
Right after breakfast Pinckney began warmin' the telephone wires, callin' up everyone he knew within fifteen miles. And he sure did a good job. While he was at that I strolls out to the tent to have a little chin with Leonidas, and I discovers him up to the neck in trouble. He was backed up against the centre pole, and in front of him was the whole actorette push, all jawin' at once, and raisin' seven different kinds of ructions.
"Excuse me for buttin' in," says I; "but I thought maybe this might be a happy family."
"It ought to be, but it ain't," says Leonidas. "Just listen to 'em."
And say, what kind of bats do you think had got into their belfries? Seems they'd heard about the two-dollar-a-head crowd that was comin' to the matinée. That, and bein' waited on by a butler at dinner the night before, had gone to the vacant spot where their brains ought to be. They were tellin' Leonidas that if they were goin' to play to Broadway prices they were goin' to give Broadway acts.
Mlle. Peroxide allowed that she would cut out the rag time and put in a few choice selections from grand opera. Montana Kate hears that, and sheds the buckskin leggins. No rifle shootin' for her; not much! She had Ophelia's lines down pat, and she meant to give 'em or die in the attempt. The black-face banjoist says he can impersonate Sir Henry Irving to the life; and the juggler guy wants to show 'em how he can eat up the Toreador song.
"These folks want somethin' high-toned," says Mlle. Peroxide, "and this is the chance of a lifetime for me to fill the bill. I'd been doin' grand opera long ago if it hadn't been for the trust."
"They told me at the dramatic school in Dubuque that I ought to stick to Shakespeare," says Montana Kate, "and here's where I get my hooks in."